26/11 remarks: Cong keeps distance from Digvijay

Published: Sunday, December 12, 2010, 13:00 [IST]

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New Delhi, Dec 12: An embarrassed Congress has chosen to distance itself from party general secretary Digvijay Singh's controversial comments that he had a conversation with former Mumbai Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) chief Hemant Karkare shortly before he was killed by terrorists on 26/11.

Karkare had apparently told Singh that he feared for his safety from Hindu extremists.

"There is no question of [one] agreeing or disagreeing [with that statement]," Congress media chairperson Janardan Dwivedi told the media on Saturday, stressing, "it concerns a conversation between two individuals. Unfortunately one of them, Karkare, is no more with us. Digvijay Singh will, therefore, be in a better position to comment on his statement."

Dwivedi also said that the Congress had nothing to say about Karkare and his family's association with Madhya Pradesh, or with Digvijay Singh.

The party also had nothing to say about the conversation between the two.

Dwivedi said: "Mr. Singh has made that private conversation public in a programme, and the party has no role in it. Hence only he can comment on it."

Karkare's widow said on Saturday that Digvijay Singh was playing vote bank politics in her dead husband's name, and continued to maintain that Pakistan was behind 26/11 and not the right-wing Rashtriya Swayam Sewak Sangh (RSS), as was being made out by Singh.